Alan Jay Lerner Biography

Alan Jay Lerner was an American librettist and lyricist who along with Frederick Loewe created some of the most renowned and enduring works of musical theatre. He started his musical career by creating lyrics for Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding musical show. Together with Loewe, he created several successful musicals. They achieved their first success with the musical Brigadoon, which bagged the New York Drama Critics Circle award for best musical. Some of their successful musical works include The Patsy called Life of the Party and What’s Up? Their joint work that received wide acknowledgement was My Fair Lady. In New York itself a total of 2,717 performances of this musical were staged. After their split, Alan also worked with Kurt Weill and Burton Lane. He was credited for the creation of more than 500 radio scripts. He was the script writer of An American in Paris, an American musical film. His autobiography, The Street Where I Live, is a vivid account of his and Loewe’s successful collaborations on My Fair Lady, Gigi and Camelot. His representation of the history of theatre in his book The Musical Theatre: A Celebration is an interesting description full with personal anecdotes which also reflects his witty personality.